Statue
of Zeus at Olympia

Artist's reconstruction of the Statue
of Zeus at Olympia

One of the seven ancient wonders
of the world. The sculptor Phidias was one of the greatest Greek artists.
In the mid-5th century BC he was commissioned by Pericles
to supervise the ornamentation of the Parthenon. He was also responsible
for three of the most famous statues of antiquity: the colossal bronze figure
of Athena on the Acropolis (sailors
coming into Piraeus, the port of Athens, could see the sun twinkling on
her spear from miles away); the gold and ivory state of Athena inside the
Parthenon; and that of Zeus which was made
for the Temple of Zeus at Olympia.

Zeus, seated on a throne within his temple, was a towering figure over 40
feet high. In his right hand was a small statue of Victory, in his left
a scepter crowned with an eagle. His flesh was ivory, his robes gold; and
his throne was inlaid with gold, ivory, ebony, and precious stones. A Roman
writer, Quintilian, said that the beauty of Phidias' Zeus had added something
to traditional religion. We can only guess at the awe-inspiring effect,
for there is no surviving picture of the statue. Some coins of the nearby
city of Elis show a head of Zeus which may be copied from Phidias' statue;
and some molds, on which the gold for the drapery was hammered into shape,
were found by excavators near Phidias' workshop at Olympia. But the statue
itself was eventually taken to Constantinople where it was destroyed by
fire.